Wolters Kluwer Health
may email you for journal alerts and information, but is committed
to maintaining your privacy and will not share your personal information without
your express consent. For more information, please refer to our Privacy Policy.

Purpose of review Strategies are needed to reduce waitlist mortality and increase transplantation rates. Advances in hepatitis C therapy has allowed the transplant community to look toward utilization of grafts from hepatitis C viremic donors to expand the organ pool. Use of such grafts for hepatitis C-negative patients is being evaluated and debated, and early trial data are emerging.

Recent findings Both hepatitis C antibody-positive/nucleic acid test-negative and viremic donors are currently underutilized. Outcomes for viral hepatitis C (HCV) viremic transplant recipients are improving in the setting of direct-acting antiviral therapy. Optimization of graft utilization from HCV ‘positive’ donors and expansion to use of viremic donors for HCV-negative recipients will likely reduce waitlist mortality and result in net overall reduction in healthcare expenditures.

Summary Herein, we provide a review of recent advancements relating to hepatitis C in solid organ transplant and outline future directions. A primary future focus will be data collection of outcomes of transplantation of grafts from HCV ‘viremic’ donors to nonviremic recipients in formal clinical trial protocols.